Posted May 31, 200519 yr http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8047258/ Politics Ex-FBI official says he's 'Deep Throat' Magazine quotes him as saying he was 'doing his duty' Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday. "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue. Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif. reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity. "The Felt family cooperated fully, providing old photographs for the story and agreeing to sit for portraits," Vanity Fair stated in a press release. Felt said he was "only doing his duty" and did not seek to bring down Nixon over the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward broke the story as Washington Post reporters, issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt's claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies. NBC News commentator Chris Matthews, who wrote a book about Watergate, said he wasn't surprised, adding that Felt "has always been the leading suspect." ? 2005 MSNBC Interactive VERY interesting....I thought i'd never see the day, even when he did die, let alone before.
May 31, 200519 yr Author heheh, "Deep Throat" 789983[/snapback] :lol I did a report on this story and always had the same reaction whenever I said or heard the named, but this is HUGE news, like news story of the year huge.
May 31, 200519 yr heheh, "Deep Throat" 789983[/snapback] :lol I did a report on this story and always had the same reaction whenever I said or heard the named, but this is HUGE news, like news story of the year huge. 789986[/snapback] I Know...
May 31, 200519 yr How can he prove it? I was in the same line of thinking, that he'd never identify himself, it seems a little odd to me that just out of no where *wham* "I'm Deep Throat."
May 31, 200519 yr Author How can he prove it? I was in the same line of thinking, that he'd never identify himself, it seems a little odd to me that just out of no where *wham* "I'm Deep Throat." 789992[/snapback] Well Felt is now 91 years old and in poor health, and consulted with his family before doing this, so my guess is he wants to clear his consious of this before passing.
May 31, 200519 yr wow... i didn't think I would hear from this so soon. Very intresting indeed. Thanks for posting
May 31, 200519 yr It had been rumored that the man who was "Deep Throat" would reveal himself when he was near death... This could finally be it.
May 31, 200519 yr Author EDIT: The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, one of the 2 men who wrote some of those Watergate stories and knows for sure, has confirmed that W. Mark Felt is indeed "Deep Throat". Simply amazing....this is BIG news. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8047258/ Ex-FBI official: I'm 'Deep Throat' Washington Post's Woodward confirms California man's story MSNBC staff and news service reports Updated: 5:30 p.m. ET May 31, 2005 A former FBI official claims he was ?Deep Throat,? the long-anonymous source who leaked secrets about President Nixon?s Watergate cover-up to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday. W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Post reporter Bob Woodward?s source, the magazine said. The report was confirmed later Tuesday by Woodward, who with Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story. ?I?m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,? Felt told lawyer John D. O?Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a news release. Felt, who said he was "only doing his duty" and did not seek to bring down Nixon over the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., was initially adamant about remaining silent on the subject. ?I don?t think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of,? Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. ?You (should) not leak information to anyone.? Felt is a retiree living in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his daughter, Joan, the magazine said. He could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press. His family members disagreed with their father, feeling that he should receive accolades for his role in Watergate before his death. "The Felt family cooperated fully, providing old photographs for the story and agreeing to sit for portraits," Vanity Fair stated in a press release. O?Connor is a lawyer at the San Francisco firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin. A receptionist there said O?Connor was out of the office but confirmed he was the author of the Vanity Fair article. The existence of Deep Throat, nicknamed for a popular porn movie of the early 1970s, was revealed in Woodward and Bernstein?s best-selling book ?All the President?s Men.? In the hit movie based on the book, Deep Throat was played by Hal Holbrook. In 2003, Woodward and Bernstein reached an agreement to keep their Watergate papers at the University of Texas at Austin. At the time, the pair said documents naming ?Deep Throat? would be kept secure at an undisclosed location in Washington until the source?s death. Before Woodward's confirmation, Bernstein issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt's claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies. Well-kept secret Who was the real Deep Throat was long a source of speculation and rumor. Among those named over the years as Deep Throat were Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, and even ABC newswoman Diane Sawyer, who then worked in the White House press office. Ron Zeigler, Nixon?s press secretary, White House aide Steven Bull, speechwriters Ray Price and Pat Buchanan, and John Dean, the White House counsel who warned Nixon of ?a cancer growing on the presidency,? also were considered candidates. And some theorized Deep Throat wasn?t a single source at all but a composite figure. The last time there was a flurry of focus on Felt was in 1999, when a high school senior in New York claimed that Bernstein's son let the secret slip at a summer camp. At the time, Felt denied he was the man. ?I would have done better,? Felt told The Hartford Courant. ?I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn?t exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?? Chris Matthews, Host of MSNBC's Hardball who wrote a book about Watergate, said he wasn't surprised, adding that Felt "has always been the leading suspect." Family reasons In the article, O'Connor reports that Felt's children, Joan and Mark Jr., urged him to go public after he revealed his secret to them in 2002. Felt argued with them, O'Connor writes, saying he didn't want the story out there. But Joan is quoted as saying that "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education. Let's do it for the family." O'Connor adds that Felt finally agreed, saying "that's a good reason" even though Mark Jr. recalls him as saying "he wasn't particularly interested" in disclosing the secret. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
May 31, 200519 yr Author Washington Post confirms that it is him Crazy stuff 790295[/snapback] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artic...epthroat31.html Washington Post Confirms Felt as 'Deep Throat' By William Branigin and David Von Drehle Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, May 31, 2005 The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon. Woodward said Felt helped The Post at a time of tense relations between the White House and much of the FBI hierarchy. He said the Watergate break-in came shortly after the death of legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Felt's mentor, and that Felt and other bureau officials wanted to see an FBI veteran promoted to succeed Hoover. Felt himself had hopes that he would be the next FBI director, but Nixon instead appointed an administration insider, assistant attorney general L. Patrick Gray, to the post. Bradlee, in an interview this afternoon, said that knowing that "Deep Throat" was a high-ranking FBI official helped him feel confident about the information that the paper was publishing about Watergate. He said that he knew the "positional identity" of "Deep Throat" as the Post was breaking its Watergate stories and that he learned his name within a couple of weeks after Nixon's resignation. "The number-two guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source," he said. "I knew the paper was on the right track," Bradlee said. The "quality of the source" and the soundness of his guidance made him sure of that, he said. "We made only one mistake ..... and that had nothing to do with 'Deep Throat,'." Bradlee said, referring to an error in reporting grand jury testimony. Bradlee said that over the years, "it was interesting to watch people flounder around with odd choices" about the identity of "Deep Throat," a nickname borrowed from the title of a pornographic film. Although he knew the source's identity, Bradlee said, "I've never met Felt. I wouldn't know him if I fell on him." In a family statement released today, Felt's grandson, Nick Jones, said, "The family believes my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice." The statement added, "We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well." Jones said in the statement, "My grandfather is pleased he is being honored for his role as 'Deep Throat' with his friend Bob Woodward. As he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think "Deep Throat" was a criminal, but now they think he was a hero.'" The Vanity Fair article, by California attorney John D. O'Connor, described Felt as conflicted over his role in the Watergate revelations and over whether he should publicly reveal that he was the anonymous source whose identity has been a closely guarded secret for more than three decades. "On several occasions he confided to me, 'I'm the guy they used to call "Deep Throat,".'." O'Connor wrote. The author wrote that Felt "still has qualms about his actions, but he also knows that historic events compelled him to behave as he did: standing up to an executive branch intent on obstructing his agency's pursuit of the truth." The article concluded, "Felt, having long harbored the ambivalent emotions of pride and self-reproach, has lived for more than 30 years in a prison of his own making, a prison built upon his strong moral principles and his unwavering loyalty to country and cause. But now, buoyed by his family's revelations and support, he need feel imprisoned no longer." ? 2005 The Washington Post Company
May 31, 200519 yr Author I'm far from a Watergate expert, so I ask somebody who is or close to it.....is this surprising news that it's this guy and not somebody else?
June 1, 200519 yr I'm far from a Watergate expert, so I ask somebody who is or close to it.....is this surprising news that it's this guy and not somebody else? 790475[/snapback] Surprising, yes (most historians suspected Fred Fielding, who was a deputy council in the White House who conflicted with Nixon), but looking at the information on the table (and the fact that he was bitter about not being named FBI director), it's practically spelled out for us. I'm surprised there wasn't more speculation.
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